A comprehensive grasp taxonomy of continuum robots

Abstract Continuum robots (CRs) have been the subject of intensive research in recent years due to their wide range of potential applications. Research on grasp taxonomy plays a key role in a number of task-based problems such as grasp synthesis, motion planning, and motion control. Additionally, grasp taxonomy has been shown to reduce the complexity of the design of robotic systems and human–computer interaction operations. The main goal of this research is to present a general CR-based grasp taxonomy. For this purpose, we first overview and summarize different types of CR-based grasp tasks. Then, we compare existing CR-based grasp configurations in the CR-related literature and classify the configurations into a comprehensive taxonomy. On the basis of this survey, nine major CR-based grasp families are introduced and arranged in subgroups for more detailed research. It should be noted that we studied grasps performed by different CR types and configurations without considering the object/CR size. Finally, the work includes different analyses of CR-based grasp taxonomy, including grasp frequency, grasp adaptability, taxonomy completeness, and properties of manipulated objects and tasks enabled by the proposed taxonomy.